First soldering station

[shobo]

Hey all,
i'm thinking of buying a soldering station for hobby use, fairly light.
A local distribuitor has the gordak 868D at about 91$
It has both hot air and soldering iron, what do you guys think?

[RayRay]

For hot air, it'd be okay, but for soldering, it'd be crap (poor, loose contact between the heating element & the tip is a major problem with those stations!) You'd be best getting each in separate IMO. Get an 858D hot air station that uses the 852 style handle, with the screw-on nozzles, such as this one:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000112389232.html
You'll have much more nozzle options with these. And for a soldering station, you'd be best getting a T12 based one.

[Doctorandus_P]

TS-100 is an attractive option if you want a decent and small iron. It can also be run from a battery pack (anything between 12Vdc and 24Vdc) and has quite a punch (80W). Disadvantage of these is that there are not many different tips available and the tips stick quite far out the handle.

If I had to buy a new Iron now though, it would be one of the T12 clones from Ali, and I would probably cobble it together from parts. The control board costs around EUR 18. The handle with silicone cord is between EUR 8 and EUR 25 (The cheapest versions are crap, don't buy those).

The power supply (24Vdc) is another EUR20 or so, but you may already have a suitable power supply. If you have a "standard" 30V 3A power supply, you may even opt for grafting in a small SMPS board for the soldering iron, or make a plug for the "raw" output voltage, and put the SMPS in a small box with the solder iron control PCB. Or just put 2 12Vdc bricks in series.

The advantages of the T12 is that there are many tips available. You could for example opt for buying a bunch of cheap ones, and replacing the ones you use often and wear out for higher quality versions. Another advantage is that the distance from your fingers to the tip is quite short, which gives you more control during positioning.

Both the T12 and TS100 have quick exchange tips which is quite handy. They both also have (adjustable) sleep and power off modes. Automatically reducing the tip temperature after some time of not using it, can significantly prolong the life of the tips. They also both use a STM32 and sourcecode is on github. So if you don't like some feature, it's quite doable to adjust the firmware and flash the thing.

If you work a lot with SMT, it is very handy to have two irons around. That way you can heat both sides of a resistor or capacitor to remove it from a PCB. And you also have redundancy. If one iron crops out for some reason you still have the other.

[james_s]

I definitely recommend separate units. I use my soldering iron all the time, I use my hot air station only occasionally. Your use case may be different but it's still probably going to be nice to be able to use one without the other. Especially if you ever carry it somewhere away from the bench.

[wizard69]

When buying a soldering station there are things you may not be aware of that should impact a buying decision.   That amounts to one thing soldering stations require maintenance over time.   So when buying you must consider the availability of parts over time, this means avoiding fly by night operations for the more established manufactures.  I’m talking things  like soldering tips, heating elements, sponges and other parts subject wear, swapping and failure. 

So go with a station from a distributor that can support you with the parts / supplies you will need over time.   Either that or go with a widely copied design.   This if buying a sophisticated station. 

The real question in my mind is this needed starting out.   It really depends upon your interests and where you are at in your abilities.   All I can say is I started out with a very simple soldered my iron.   Get serious though and you really will want a decent soldering station.   At that point I’d consider what my favorite distributor had on offer as mentioned above.